Movie review: ‘Papillon’ is a gritty remake

Al Alexander More Content Now

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Aug 23, 2018 at 4:03 PMAug 23, 2018 at 4:03 PM

There’s a lot of ugliness at work in the prison drama “Papillon,” but like its butterfly namesake, something beautiful and delicate emerges from its well-spun chrysalis. And that’s the unlikely friendship between a roguish safecracker and a pipsqueak forger sent to endure the brutal hell that was the French penal colony Saint Laurent de Maroni.

We’ve seen this movie before — literally — in 1973, with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman filling the respective roles. But where that version was grander and more artsy, the remake featuring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek is more engagingly human and affecting. It’s also more organic, with the unlikely friendship between their characters slowly blossoming amid the blood and the mud of a penitentiary infamous for its barbarism. Danish director Michael Noer doesn’t blink in depicting it, either. What he lacks in disseminating style is compensated by infusing his film with uncompromising grit.

It’s so disturbingly visceral you can feel every punch, shanking and indignity bestowed by the guards — and inmates. You also clearly sense the deterioration of the soul when locked in a dark, dank room alone with your thoughts for months on end. And what you think about most is escape. It’s certainly at the forefront of the minds of Hunnam’s Henri Charrière and his comrade in flight, Malek’s Louis Dega. You can hear the gears in their heads meshing over their twin goals of preservation and extrication. How much of what we see in those pursuits is true is anyone’s guess, but this is how the real Charrière, nicknamed Papillon for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, claims it all went down in his 1969 best-seller.

It begins in 1931 in Paris. We first see Charrière cracking yet another safe and rushing off to fence the jewels to the local mafia. Mere hours later, while he and his very-hot date (Eve Hewson) are partying at the Moulin Rouge, an observant member of the mob notices that Charrière hasn’t turned over all the loot, a faux pas that promptly gets him framed for murder. So it’s off to Saint Laurent, aka “Camp de la Transportation,” in remote French Guiana. Like Alcatraz, there’s no viable means of escape. If the guards don’t kill you, the surrounding jungle or shark-infested waters will. You’ll also need a fair sum of money for bribes and services. Lucky for Charrière, he finds a virtual bank up the rectum (Talk about dirty money!) of the scrawny Dega, a wealthy dandy with a larcenous habit of kiting.

That discreetly hidden bankroll comes in quite handy when Dega hires Charrière to be his personal bodyguard. But what begins as a relationship of convenience gradually evolves into something movingly selfless and loyal — often to the detriment of both parties. Their adventures — on land and sea — are a constant source of tension and suspense thanks to Noer’s fine direction. Unlike Franklin Schaffner’s behind-the-camera work in the 1973 original, Noer doesn’t go for weightiness and spectacle. He’s more attuned to the story and its themes of friendship and survival.

Schaffner (“Planet of the Apes,” “Patton”) also wasn’t much for dialogue, despite working from a script by legends Lorenzo Semple Jr. (“Three Days of the Condor”) and two-time Oscar-winner Dalton Trumbo (“Roman Holiday”). But Noer puts a premium on it in allowing writer Aaron Guzikowski to stay truer to Charrière’s memoir, ensuring a story with depth and meaning. Hunnam and Malek make the most of it, too, with riveting performances that more than carry us through the film’s creaky and bloated midsection. Still, Noer’s version zips along, clocking in almost 30 minutes shorter than Schaffner’s entry.

True, Hunnam and Malek lack the megawatt star power of McQueen and Hoffman, but that everyman quality eliminates the distraction of seeing stars instead of actors, thus enabling a much larger investment in the characters. I might be crazy, but that added involvement made this a much more enjoyable experience than the original, which really wasn’t the “classic” many claim it to be. Heck, no less than Pauline Kael described the first film as “methodical, and pointlessly grueling.” That’s never the case here. It might not be perfect, but this “Papillon” definitely has wings.

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